WELCOME TO OUR PARKINSON'S PLACE!

I HAVE PARKINSON'S DISEASES AND THOUGHT IT WOULD BE NICE TO HAVE A PLACE WHERE THE CONTENTS OF UPDATED NEWS IS FOUND IN ONE PLACE. THAT IS WHY I BEGAN THIS BLOG.

I COPY NEWS ARTICLES PERTAINING TO RESEARCH, NEWS AND INFORMATION FOR PARKINSON'S DISEASE, DEMENTIA, THE BRAIN, DEPRESSION AND PARKINSON'S WITH DYSTONIA. I ALSO POST ABOUT FUNDRAISING FOR PARKINSON'S DISEASE AND EVENTS. I TRY TO BE UP-TO-DATE AS POSSIBLE.

I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR IT'S CONTENTS. I AM JUST A COPIER OF INFORMATION SEARCHED ON THE COMPUTER. PLEASE UNDERSTAND THE COPIES ARE JUST THAT, COPIES AND AT TIMES, I AM UNABLE TO ENLARGE THE WORDING OR KEEP IT UNIFORMED AS I WISH. IT IS IMPORTANT TO UNDERSTAND I AM A PERSON WITH PARKINSON'S DISEASE. I HAVE NO MEDICAL EDUCATION,

I JUST WANT TO SHARE WITH YOU WHAT I READ ON THE INTERNET. IT IS UP TO YOU TO DECIDE WHETHER TO READ IT AND TALK IT OVER WITH YOUR DOCTOR. I AM JUST THE COPIER OF DOCUMENTS FROM THE COMPUTER. I DO NOT HAVE PROOF OF FACT OR FICTION OF THE ARTICLE. I ALSO TRY TO PLACE A LINK AT THE BOTTOM OF EACH ARTICLE TO SHOW WHERE I RECEIVED THE INFORMATION SO THAT YOU MAY WANT TO VISIT THEIR SITE.

THIS IS FOR YOU TO READ AND TO ALWAYS KEEP AN OPEN MIND.

PLEASE DISCUSS THIS WITH YOUR DOCTOR, SHOULD YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS, OR CONCERNS. NEVER DO ANYTHING WITHOUT TALKING TO YOUR DOCTOR FIRST..

I DO NOT MAKE ANY MONEY FROM THIS WEBSITE. I VOLUNTEER MY TIME TO HELP ALL OF US TO BE INFORMED.

I WILL NOT ACCEPT ANY ADVERTISEMENT OR HEALING POWERS, HEALING FROM HERBS AND ETC. UNLESS IT HAS GONE THROUGH TRIALS AND APPROVED BY FDA. IT WILL GO INTO SPAM.

THIS IS A FREE SITE FOR ALL WITH NO ADVERTISEMENTS

THANK YOU FOR VISITING! TOGETHER WE CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE!

TRANSLATE

Monday, September 19, 2016

Scientists find Huntington's disease mice respond differently to common infection

September 19, 2016

A montage of three images of single striatal neurons transfected with a disease-associated version of huntingtin, the protein that causes Huntington's disease. Nuclei of untransfected neurons are seen in the background (blue). The neuron in the center (yellow) contains an abnormal intracellular accumulation of huntingtin called an inclusion body (orange). Credit: Wikipedia/ Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license


Casual conversation three years ago between University of Wyoming veterinary sciences and molecular biology researchers resulted in findings that show for the first time mice engineered to have the human genetic disorder Huntington's disease have an altered immune response to a common infection.
They are now seeking funding to pursue additional studies to understand how infectious processes may interact with Huntington's, which is caused by a single gene mutation.
Jonathan Fox in  and Jason Gigley in exposed  with Huntington's disease (HD) to toxoplasmosis, a common and widespread infection.
Their research found such mice die sooner and have an altered immune response. That could reveal facts about not only Huntington's, but also the interaction between infectious diseases and related neurodegenerative disorders, such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and prion diseases, in humans, they say.
Fox and Gigley refuse to speculate if the response they observed may be the same in humans with HD—Fox's research focus—but do say they believe they've found one factor that could contribute to the variability of when symptoms appear in humans.
That varies greatly from childhood to old age but, for most people, it's in early adult life.
"We know environmental factors contribute to the large variability in age of disease onset, but next to nothing is known about which environmental factors are involved," Fox says.
Toxoplasmosis, caused by Toxoplasma gondii, appears to make mouse HD worse. 
"Importantly, this infection has high prevalence in the human population, so we think it important to investigate if T. gondii also affects human HD," he says.
A game of cat and mouse lays at least a little of the foundation for the research, and there's a good chance many reading this have a connection to the study.
Gigley is an expert in T. gondii, a parasite found worldwide in more than 30 to 50 percent of humans (and more than 60 million in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention).
Research shows the parasite alters behavior of those infected in such a way to help guarantee its survival—the parasite causes mice to lose their innate fear of cats. It can only reproduce in the cat gut and enters the environment through feces.
Humans can contract toxoplasmosis by consuming undercooked meat, coming into contact with feces or not washing vegetables or fruit, or even digging in a garden without gloves, then touching their mouths.
The parasite is forever; once infected, there is no cure. Fox says T. gondii is the third-leading cause of food-borne illness in the U.S. that results in hospitalization; however, once people feel better, most show no symptoms.
In their cross-hallway chat (Fox had moved his lab to the same floor as Gigley in the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources), the two found HD and T. gondii infection shared a common . T. gondii infections activate a pathway in the cell that deprives the parasite of food. A biological pathway is a series of actions that leads to a change in a cell.
"Our thinking was this infection, based on literature, should activate this pathway that is known to make Huntington's worse; that's why we came up with the idea of infecting mice with the parasite," Fox says. "Mice are naturally infected with the parasite, so we are not studying an artificial infection."
Much HD research is done using mice free of infections, they say. Scientists go to great lengths to keep laboratory mice infectious disease-free.
But, in the real world, humans, including those with Huntington's, are exposed to all kinds of different pathogens—including those that cause cold sores, flu and toxoplasmosis, Fox says.
"So, this area of interaction between genetic disease and  is something that hasn't been studied a whole lot," he notes.
This study is the first that demonstrates any type of definable impact of a live infectious agent on an HD animal model.
Their research, "Interaction of Toxoplasma gondii and Huntington's disease in mice," was published last week in PLOS ONE, and culminates three years of work fueled by pilot project funds from a National Institutes of Health Neuroscience Center grant.
More information: David W. Donley et al. Huntingtons Disease Mice Infected with Toxoplasma gondii Demonstrate Early Kynurenine Pathway Activation, Altered CD8+ T-Cell Responses, and Premature Mortality, PLOS ONE (2016). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0162404 
Journal reference: PLoS ONE
Provided by: University of Wyoming 
http://medicalxpress.com/news/2016-09-scientists-huntington-disease-mice-differently.html

No comments:

Post a Comment